But he didn't lack for enthusiasm as he did a walk-through recently of the former U.S. Post Office building in downtown St. Paul.

Stolpestad, the developer who bought the massive building recently with a group of investors, points out the wide-open spaces that used to be large mail-sorting areas. There are also historical oddities -- like the "Third St. Entrance" sign that hangs over the lobby door leading to Kellogg Boulevard -- and the nostalgia, including numerous walk-in vaults scattered around the building.

Stolpestad and his team bought the towering, 17-story building over the summer for $5.25 million.

Views of downtown St. Paul, facing to the northwest from the rooftop of the sixteenth floor of the former U.S. post office in downtown St. Paul, which developer Jim Stolpestad purchased and plans to turn into rental apartments, photographed on September 24, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

By the fall of 2015, they plan to have renters moving into the renovated building, which has sweeping views of the Mississippi River, the Lowertown neighborhood and beyond. There could be 200 to 250 apartment units, depending on how several wide-open floors just above the lobby level are used.

"You rarely figure out these old buildings all at once," Stolpestad said. "It takes a while."

It also takes some cash. He anticipates a cost of $50 million or more to renovate the post office into the Custom House apartments, as it will be known. Groups touring the building recently included potential financial partners from around the country.

Stolpestad and his company, Exeter Realty, aren't household names in the Twin Cities. But people know their work. The company has been behind some of the most visible development projects in the area in the past 20 years.

'I DON'T GOLF'

Five retail buildings along Grand Avenue, including both of the Victoria Crossing malls -- with tenants including Cafe Latte and Pottery Barn -- are Exeter-owned projects. The retail malls on either side of the Lunds grocery in Highland Park are Exeter properties.

Views of downtown St. Paul, facing to the northwest from the sixteenth floor of the former U.S. post office in downtown St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

And the Cobalt condominiums in Minneapolis' Nicollet Island neighborhood were a new-construction project put together by Stolpestad's team, opening in 2006.

More recently, he's trended toward distinctive historic projects. That included the purchase of the art-deco office building on St. Paul's East Side that used to be 3M's corporate headquarters, which he plans to lease as office space. His most ambitious historical renovation involved the Chittenden and Eastman Building on University Avenue, a St. Paul warehouse dating to 1917 that was converted to 104 loft apartments and opened this year.

After spending decades in the development business, Stolpestad, 70, says he isn't about to start looking for more leisure time.

"I don't golf," he said. Continuing to work on new projects "isn't just about me." His business partners at Exeter include his son, Rob, 42, who has worked with him for 20 years. "We've got a team of people, either employees or partners, who are all around that same age. So they're the ones too who are driving the enthusiasm for doing new things. It's not just me."

BUYING LOW

Stolpestad grew up on St. Paul's East Side and went to University High School and then to the University of Minnesota, where he earned his undergraduate and law degrees.

"I went to law school because dad was a doctor, and I was expected to be a professional," he said. He started a law firm in downtown St. Paul with some partners, and in the 1980s merged with Doherty, Rumble & Butler, a prominent firm in Minneapolis.

He was a senior partner at Doherty, Rumble, working in property law, but he still had the idea of venturing out on his own at some point into development.

In 1973, he and some partners bought the Bread and Chocolate building on Grand Avenue for $67,500. After a fire a year later, one of the partners bought out the others, including Stolpestad.

It wasn't until 1991, when he was 48, that he launched Exeter Realty by himself.

The first building he bought was the Kamstra Center, an office building on Montreal Avenue near Shepard Road and Interstate 35E. The building had been vacant for two years when he acquired it, with the help of a low-interest loan from the city of St. Paul.

Other early, high-profile purchases were along Grand Avenue, and his timing was ideal.

View of the former U.S. post office in downtown St. Paul, from the corner of Kellogg and Jackson, which developer Jim Stolpestad purchased and plans to turn into rental apartments, photographed on September 24, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

With the economy beaten down by high gas prices and the savings-and-loan crisis, real estate had hit a rough patch and bargains were available for those with a longer outlook.

Exeter Realty bought the building that's now home to Cafe Latte from the Resolution Trust Corp., the government-owned asset management company that liquidated bank assets after the S&L crisis. With other investors, in 1991, Stolpestad also bought the Milton Mall, home to what is now Salut restaurant, following that building's bankruptcy. Around the same time, he also bought the Bread and Chocolate building again -- this time out of foreclosure.

The demographics of the Grand Avenue area made those retail properties a success, he said. The area started attracting a younger crowd in the 1980s, and people began moving in and fixing up the old houses in the area.

"I wish I had bought about 10 more buildings," he says.

OUT OF ST. PAUL UNTIL 2010

Still, his work on Grand Avenue wasn't always a relaxed shopping trip for old buildings and new retail tenants.

The Victoria Plaza project he proposed in the late 1990s was the most contentious and stressful he's been involved with, he said, because of neighbors' reaction. Even though opponents focused on the planned two-level parking ramp, Stolpestad said the corner in question had been a parking lot for years, and residents "didn't want it to change. Period."

Exeter Realty came back with a slightly modified design, won city approval, and the renamed Grand Place Retail Center opened in 2001. It's now home to Pottery Barn, a HealthEast clinic and other tenants.

But Stolpestad said the experience colored his thinking of doing more business in St. Paul, and he didn't undertake another project until 2010. "There was lack of opportunity, and we were preoccupied by the Cobalt too," he said.

That would be the Cobalt project -- a $65 million condo complex with a Lund's underneath it, across the Mississippi River from downtown Minneapolis. Exeter Realty broke ground on the project in 2005. Stolpestad notes that those years around the housing bubble were "historically unique" for housing finance, with relatively easy credit that fed a boom in residential construction.

"Those days are gone and will probably not ever come back," he said.

The Cobalt worked out well for Exeter. The condos sold well, and Exeter sold the retail portion of the building earlier this year for more than $12 million.

While condominium prices have been on a roller coaster in the last decade in the Twin Cities, demand for units in the Cobalt has remained relatively strong. There's currently a 1 bedroom/1 bath unit, with just less than 1,100 square feet, on the market for $320,000.

Lining up financing for condominium projects now is difficult, and that explains all the apartment buildings going up around the Twin Cities.

Exeter began its most ambitious renovation in 2010, when it acquired the Chittenden and Eastman building, located on University Avenue near Hwy. 280.

Completed in January, the apartment building now awaits the arrival of the new light rail line between the two downtowns. "Light rail was critical to getting lenders involved," Stolpestad said. The rail line will start service next year, but the C&E apartments are already fully leased.

INSIDE THE POST OFFICE

Cecile Bedor, director of St. Paul's Planning and Economic Development office, said the Exeter team is "good at figuring out how to take care of all the nooks and crannies" in a building like the large post office. Stolpestad, she said, "doesn't find a formula and say, I'll stick with this. Every project is unique."

A one-hour tour of the former downtown St. Paul post office only skims the surface of all the space inside. The building's main tower was built in 1934, and also was a custom house that processed paperwork for imports and exports. During its heyday, the building housed 18,000 workers -- 6,000 on three different shifts, Stolpestad was told. Most of them were sorting mail.

A large annex added in 1961, behind the tower, includes three levels of loading docks.

The renovation will involve finding uses for -- or altering -- space that doesn't easily lend itself to apartment floor plans. There are the bank-style vaults, and the 16 elevators.

Despite the difficulties of working in older buildings, Stolpestad believes "it's easier to buy an existing building, fix it up and lease it out," he said. "If we went to a cornfield in the suburbs, we wouldn't know what to do."

The post office will be market-rate housing, with a mix of apartment sizes, he said. As he walked through in September, he said the biggest standard units will probably be two-bedroom apartments with a den, each totaling about 1,500 square feet.

There will also be two or three large penthouse-style apartments on the 16th floor, with access to the roof that juts out on that floor, and views that stretch for miles. Former indoor loading docks will provide 400 parking spaces.

Floors 2-5 are wide-open floor plates with 72,000 square feet each and ceilings almost 20 feet high. It's unclear what will happen on those floors -- maybe commercial. Bedor noted that employers "want large open floor plates. A lot of historic buildings don't have that."

More recently, Stolpestad heard from a hotel that might be interested in that space. It's looking more likely that those floors will be developed at the same time as the apartment renovation work on the upper floors.

'IT TAKES SOME VISION'

Phil Ordway, a member of the well-known St. Paul family, is an experienced real estate investor who's also partnered with Stolpestad on projects dating back 15-20 years, starting with the Grand Avenue buildings.

The projects that Exeter has chosen over the years "have been a factor of the times," Ordway said. "Retail was very attractive back when we were doing the Grand Avenue projects. Then condos were popular, now rental properties are where the action is."

Ordway believes the post office building has great potential. "It takes some vision with the condition that it's in, but the possibilities are really exciting, not just in the tower space, but the lower floors as well."

State and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits will be key to the project.

The group at Exeter does its research on potential renovation projects, "and we look at many other that we don't dive into," Ordway said. The boom in apartment housing in the Twin Cities, and its sustainability, is a valid issue, Stolpestad said. But their market research supports the plan, and "we're pushing hard to get going on it," he said. The fall of 2015 remains the target date to get people in the door. "If we wait two to three years beyond that, things would be less certain," he said.

Downtown St. Paul's employment base --- which is heavy on government, health care and insurance jobs -- is larger now than it's ever been, Stolpestad said.

"Cynics would say, 'Why go to downtown St. Paul?' " he said. "But the residential base here is significant." The vacancy rate in downtown St. Paul is similar to Minneapolis, he said, and the variety of units available isn't as great in St. Paul.

Since he acquired the former post office, he's also been in touch with real estate investors all over the country, and the feedback has been positive. "I've talked to more than a dozen, it gives you a sense of confidence that you're on the right track," he said.

John Welbes can be reached at 651-228-2175.

Counters and windows of the sixth floor Custom House will be preserved as one of the "character defining elements" of the former U.S. post office in downtown St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)